Page 56 of The Virgin Who Vindicated Lord Darlington
Cecilia snatched her foot back, a sudden chill creeping up her neck as she turned to the dressing room on the other side of the bedchamber. She bit her lip, hesitating. There was no logical explanation why it should be so, but some inexplicable instinct was luring her toward that dressing room, urging her to explore the massive clothes press inside.
This is madness.
No good ever came from poking about in other people’s closets, but even as her brain warned against it, Cecilia was already crossing the room, easing the door of the clothes press open, and peeking inside. It was dark, but a flutter of something caught her attention. It looked like…a fold of silk or satin, very much like the skirt of a gown. “No. It’s impossible.” She reached out a shaking hand, her heart pounding. “It can’tbe, it can’t—”
She broke off on a gasp as her fingertips met a fold of smooth,slippery silk.
No. She couldn’t be seeing what she thoughtshe was seeing.
But she was. It was there, as plain as day.
An elegant blue silk ball gown was hanging on its own special hanging rack inside the clothes press. Cecilia stared at it with her feet rooted to the floor. A blue silk ball gown, embroidered slippers, and jeweled hairpins, all appearing in the marchioness’s bedchamberas if by magic?
She didn’t remember any of these things being here before, but mightn’t she have missed them the first time? The hairpins were easily overlooked, and the shadows under the dressing table would have made it impossible to see the slippersfrom the door.
But a blue silk ball gown? Surely, she would have noticedthatthe first time she’d ventured into Lady Darlington’s bedchamber? It seemed too substantial a thing for her to have missed.
Cecilia’s mind raced back to that night. She’d heard the strange scratching sound, and found the bedchamber unlocked. She’d followed the sound into the dressing room, and from there to the clothes press. She’d eased thedoor open, and…
Seraphina had leapt out, frightening the life of out of her, and Cecilia had chased the cat into the bedchamber, without sparing the clothes press another thought. No, she’d never taken a good look inside. She couldn’t be certain the gown hadn’t been there all along.
Of course, it must have been. It was the only thing that made any sense. The only other explanation—that someone had brought the hairpins and the shoes and the gown into Lady Darlington’s bedchamber since the last time Cecilia had been here—made no sense at all.
Unless…
Cecilia swallowed. Perhaps the villagers had been right about one thing—that the Marchioness of Darlingtonwasback—but they’d been wrongabout another.
Perhaps shewasn’ta ghost.
Cecilia didn’t believe in ghosts, or shehadn’t, but there were only two explanations for the events of tonight, both ofthem appalling.
It was either one nightmare, or the other.
Either ghosts trulydidexist, and the White Lady was haunting Darlington Castle, just as the villagers claimed she was, or…
Or Lady Darlington wasn’t dead, after all.
* * * *
She was here.
Gideon couldn’t see her face, and he couldn’t hear her voice or the echo of her footsteps. He didn’t catch her scent floating on the frigid night air, but sight, sound, and scent were no longer of any use to him, now he was chasing a ghost.
Not that they’d ever been much use to him, really. A man’s senses could deceive him, with tragic results. If he’d learned nothing else this past year, it was that.
So, he suspended them all in favor of instinct, intuition, reflex. He knew she was here because he couldsenseher nearness, feel her lurking in the darkness of the woods, darting between the bare branches of the trees, waiting. He could feel her cold, ghostly fingertips grazing the back of his neck, leaving a chillin their wake.
“You have servants guarding the castle?” Haslemere’svoice was grim.
“Yes. Fraser on the ground floor, Duncan on the second.” Both were young, strong Scotsmen, gentle but fiercely protective of the inhabitants of Darlington Castle. No one, whether ghost or human, would get by either of them without a battle.
Haslemere nodded. “Good. Mrs. Briggs saw the lantern light near the tree line?”
“Past the rose walk, on the south edge of the property.” The villagers’ rumors about the ghost echoed in Gideon’s head as he and Haslemere made their way across thefrozen ground.
White gown, white hair, face adeathly white…
He’d never imagined for an instant the rumors could betrue. He should have known, should have seen it—
